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- # In the Renaissance poetry of Spain.
## Overview
This is a subsection from an introduction, focusing on the influence of the Venus and Adonis story in Renaissance poetry of Spain. It was extracted on January 30, 2026, by the `structure-extraction-lambda` tool from the text file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). The subsection covers lines 399-410 of the source file.
## Context
This subsection is part of the introduction [I](arke:01KG6S4BKQ53B3KC1BB0SHTW5X) within a larger document, and it is contained in the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y) collection. It follows the scene [In Spain it was Italian example which directly inspired the treatment of the story.](arke:01KG6S5Q0YGMDZP9NN51BGCFP4) and precedes the subsection [Don Diego](arke:01KG6S5Q0YJ6VKX8W9K78YF7KV).
## Contents
The subsection discusses the presence and adaptation of the Venus and Adonis story in Spanish Renaissance poetry. It mentions [Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza](arke:01KG6S5Q0YGMDZP9NN51BGCFP4), a Spanish statesman who wrote *Fábula de Adonis* in 1553. It also references other Spanish poets and their works on the same theme, including poems in the *Cancionero general* of Amberes (1557), Juan de la Cueva's *Llanto de Venus en la muerte de Adonis*, Juan de Arguijo's *Venus en la muerte de Adonis*, and Lope de Vega's tragedy *Adonis y Venus*. The text suggests that the widespread presence of the Venus and Adonis story in European Renaissance literature, including Spain, indicates its popularity and influence before and during Shakespeare's engagement with the theme. The common sources in classical poetry are noted as a reason for the similarities among the various adaptations of the story.
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- In the Renaissance poetry of Spain.
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- 410
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- In the Renaissance poetry of Spain.
<!-- [Page 32](arke:01KG6QANHAH7R540AS29FQQ1AM) -->
VENUS AND ADONIS 25.
who in the course of his diplomatic occupations visited both Italy and England during the first half of the sixteenth century, produced in 1553 a Spanish poem called *Fábula de Adonis*, in eight-lined stanzas, which enjoyed wide popularity in the peninsula. Don Diego narrated the legend after the manner of Dolce. Other Spanish poets subsequently repeated Mendoza’s experiment. In the miscellaneous collection of poetry, the *Cancionero general* of Amberes, which appeared in 1557, there figured an attractive poem on the subject in short metre. A writer of repute, Juan de la Cueva (1550–1609), penned in eighteen ‘ottavas reales’ the *Llanto de Venus en la muerte de Adonis*¹, and there is a stilted sonnet by Lope de Vega’s friend Juan de Arguijo (d. 1629), entitled *Venus en la muerte de Adonis*. Finally, in the last decade of the century, the theme was elaborately recast by a more distinguished pen. Lope de Vega’s tragedy entitled *Adonis y Venus*, which greatly developed the ancient legend, is the most notable adaptation of the story in the literature of Spain.²
Thus a cursory survey of the literature of the European Renaissance shows not merely that the story of Venus and Adonis had already travelled far and wide before it engaged Shakespeare’s attention, but that it was still enjoying active life abroad while he was working upon it. The strong family resemblance which exists among the component parts of this many-languaged Adonic literature is mainly due to the common sources in classical poetry. Only where there recur in two or more poems details or reflections or
¹ *Obras poéticas*, Seville, 1982.
² Cf. Observaciones preliminares, ix–xxv, before Lope’s tragedy *Adonis y Venus* in *Obras de Lope de Vega publicadas por la Real Academia Española*, Tomo vi, Madrid, 1896. Several narrative poems on the same subject appeared in Spain during the seventeenth century. Cf. Alonso de Batres’ *Fábula de Adonis y Venus*, and Juan de Moncayo y Gurrea’s *Venus y Adonis* (Zaragoza, 1652).
- title
- In the Renaissance poetry of Spain.